Great to see you again! This week was all about art. Some people think of “art” as self-indulgent or impractical, but that’s a dangerous myth. We’re talking about the roll-up-your-sleeves work that adds more artistry to your content — which is what we all need to attract our audiences’ attention in 2018. On Monday, Stefanie Read More…

This week, we talked about some of the joys — and pitfalls — of the professional creative life. Your friends don’t get what you do, sometimes you don’t completely “get it” yourself — but when it’s working, the rewards can be glorious. On Monday, Stefanie Flaxman explored the peculiar (and sometimes hard to understand) nature Read More…

What brought you here today? What are you hoping to learn, be, become, do, or change by reading Copyblogger? We’ll be asking that question a lot in the coming year, but while we wait (feel free to answer in the comments below — we’d love to hear it), allow us to talk about why we Read More…

Quality audio sounds as if you’re talking around a kitchen table or with a client in your office. Your sound should be a “welcome mat” that invites the listener in for what feels like a face-to-face conversation.

How do you accomplish that? Here are 10 tips that will help you produce the “welcome mat” experience.

1. Value your listeners

Quality audio isn’t about making you sound good, it’s about engaging your audience.

2. Invest in the right microphone

You knew this one was coming.

Microphones are the most important element of quality audio, but podcasters don’t need fancy, expensive ones.

If you record a monologue or interview-style podcast in an office or room in a home, a dynamic microphone is what you need. Other microphones work, but they can require more resources to coax out good sound.

The microphones listed above will produce quality sound, but remember that choosing a microphone is mostly about personality and taste. You need to ask yourself if the microphone is right for you, your voice, and your brand.

One way to answer the “which is best for me” question is to book a session at a professional recording studio and try out a variety of microphones. Take those recordings and get some feedback.

Between the engineer at the studio and your friends and family, you should be able to find a clear winner. Also, keep your target audience in mind. Does the microphone help communicate who you are? Does it match the tone your audience needs to hear?

Here are a couple guidelines about microphones to avoid:

The headset microphone that came with your smartphone. While those are great for appearing live on Facebook, they’re not ideal for podcasting.

A condenser microphone. They’re made for the acoustics in big, fancy, recording studios. Unless you’re planning to build a recording booth in your garage, leave these microphones in the store.

3. Use a microphone stand

Some podcasters like to record with the microphone in their hands. Unless holding the mic is absolutely necessary, avoid that technique.

Another common microphone-stand mistake is connecting it to a surface your hands or feet easily touch. If it’s a desk-mount stand, try connecting it to a nearby piece of furniture that’s not touching the desk. Or, if it’s a floor-mount stand, make sure the feet rest on carpet or padding.

Otherwise, the small movements you make during recording can transfer up the stand and into the microphone, which produces distracting sounds.

4. Find a great place to record

This item alone is a quick win for good sound.

Before you record, double-check that your room doesn’t reflect your voice back into the microphone. Carpet, furniture, wall decorations, and non-parallel walls all help calm the reflections. Trying a smaller room, or even a closet, is often easier than acoustically treating your current recording space.

You should also keep outside noises to a minimum. Common offenders are:

Fans

Refrigerators

Furnaces

Cars

Phones and other electronics

Open windows

5. Speak near the microphone

Nearly everyone shies away from the microphone. Don’t.

Even a slight distance from a mic makes you sound like you’re in a cave.

You’ll want to nearly kiss it. Make it your friend, and it will make you friends as you build your audience.

6. Set up a pop filter

The downside of speaking near the microphone is that it causes “plosives.”

“Plosives” are simply the air from consonant sounds disrupting the sensitive components of the microphone.

The pop filter, a screen that goes around or in front of a microphone, is a tried-and-true solution. Expensive or cheap, they’re all about the same.

7. Select an audio interface

Although many recommend using a mixing board, I’ve found that the never-ending knobs create more headaches than freedom.

The simplest solution is to plug your microphone into an audio interface, which converts your analogue microphone sound into digital, so your computer can understand it.

As a side note, even if you’re using the Audio-Technica 2100, it’s still a good idea to utilize an audio interface instead of the USB connection. It produces a much more detailed and clear sound.

8. Record separate tracks

Take advantage of multiple tracks to make sure every voice has its own separate recording.

With a two-person interview, it’s easy to pan the host to the left track and the guest to the right track. If your guest joins you via video chat, capturing a separate track of their local recording is helpful.

In the past, this was only possible if the guest was well-versed in audio or recording in a radio station. Thankfully, technology has advanced.

One of my favorite tools is Zencastr. It records via a web browser and uploads the best audio possible to your dropbox account.

9. Back up your recordings

Some people prefer to avoid a computer and record into a small recording device. I often do this myself, after having one too many recording sessions ruined by computer glitches.

I know of an author whose power went out while he was recording an audiobook. He lost four hours of recorded audio!

You can avoid that exact situation by recording into an external recorder. Or better yet, record into a computer for convenience and add an external recorder as a backup, just in case.

One of the fastest ways is to simply use an XLR splitter, which will split the signal into both the audio interface and the external recorder. If you have multiple sources, running an output from the interface into the recorder is a great way to use it as a secondary backup.

10. Edit and produce your content

While creating a good recording is the bulk of what’s involved in producing a podcast, quality editing and production wraps up the package.

If you have audio experience, go for it, but if you’re hesitant, grab someone who’s spent some time in the field. Even if you don’t hire a producer who specifically works with podcasts, their wisdom can help ensure you avoid expensive mistakes and end up with a quality product.

For those producing podcasts on their own, check out Auphonic. Auphonic has turned years of professional audio experience into an inexpensive piece of online software. Their specialty is leveling audio and removing background hiss and noise, an audio producer’s two most important jobs.

Bonus tip: loosen up

Before you record, have some fun: watch a cat video, laugh a little, do some vocal warm-ups.

Think about the person you’re aiming to help and the problem you can’t wait to solve for them.

Better recordings strengthen your message

Remember, audio equipment exists to enhance your message.

Who you are and what you have to say is invaluable … the gear is just a method of transporting the gold.

Special offer for Copyblogger readers only: Contact Toby on Twitter or at TwentyFourSound for a one-time, free podcast review. He’ll help you find the exact steps needed to match your audio to your voice.

“Da” was the first pronoun I used to refer to myself as a small child. I think I was trying to say “I,” but I overcomplicated the word.

At any rate, whenever I encountered a new or challenging task — like growing human beings do — I would say out loud:

“Now how Da do dis?” (Translation: How do I do this?)

It became a running joke in my family, and it’s a phrase I still use today. When I sat down to write this article, I said to myself, “Now how Da do dis?” I say it to myself every time I write.

Ideally, content marketers of all levels are impassioned and driven, but beginners tend to be an especially enthusiastic bunch. There are so many possibilities and you want to explore them all. You know you can master content marketing; you just need to figure out how.

This week’s Copyblogger Collection is a series of three handpicked articles that will show you:

How to take advantage of exactly where you are right now

How to transform your business with a well-built brand statement

How to use specificity to build a profitable audience

As you work your way through the material below, think of the following lessons as a mini content marketing course for beginners.

The Key to Innovative Business Ideas: Cross-Pollination

No content marketer is an island. We all know this. But we don’t always take the initiative to strategically collaborate to generate the best content marketing ideas.

Pamela Wilson says:

The birds and the bees do this naturally, and we can, too. It’s called cross-pollination. They fly from one flower to another, or one tree to the next, picking up bits of one plant and carrying it to the other.

The plant on the receiving end of this pollination is hardier and able to reproduce with greater variety. It meets environmental challenges more successfully because it’s genetically diverse.

In the same way, when you cross-pollinate ideas, you make your business stronger.

In case you missed it, back in September we introduced Rainmaker, the complete website solution for building your online marketing and sales platform. With Rainmaker, you can:

Create powerful content-driven websites on your own domains.

Build membership sites and online training courses.

Sell digital products like software, ebooks, and more.

Perform sophisticated online lead generation.

Optimize your content for search engines and social networks.

Absorb cutting-edge tactics and strategy with included training.

Avoid a patchwork of plugins, themes, and complicated code.

Forget about upgrades, maintenance, security, and hosting headaches.

Take your content and domain to WordPress at any time you choose.

If you didn’t miss it, but have been holding back on getting started, this may be the perfect time to get rolling.

Coming Soon: Rainmaker Professional Plan

Currently, Rainmaker is available as a single version, which we call the Standard Plan. It’s pretty powerful in what it can do, and more importantly, what it can take off your plate so you can concentrate on content.

By the end of March 2015, however, there will be a more advanced plan available called Rainmaker Professional. As you might expect, it will have powerful additional features that will carry a higher price tag.

Here’s what’s coming in Rainmaker Professional:

Advanced Reporting and Analytics

The way you see your business growing and changing each day will become even more useful in the near future. The Rainmaker Platform’s analytics and reporting functions will evolve with more advanced reporting options for those who want them.

You’ll be able to drill down into the stats that you really want to see, and slice and dice your preferences from within the dashboard itself. That means creating simple, at-a-glance views of the specific metrics you want (such as demographics, or specific segments of your customers and prospects).

This is exciting stuff, because you’d normally need a third-party tool to accomplish what we’re planning for analytics. For those who sign up this week, however, it comes standard with Rainmaker.

And yes, podcasting stats are on the way. Soon, you’ll be able to see how your podcast is performing, without the hassle of separate hosting and stats packages. We’ve got a few more ideas on the near horizon for Rainmaker Podcasting that we’re not quite ready to talk about (but you’ll get upgraded to). Just remember, we’re podcasters too, so you can bet we’re motivated to make this the best and easiest podcasting solution on the planet for entrepreneurs.

More Designs and Landing Page Templates

You may have noticed that there’s been a slight change in how we’re developing design themes lately. We call it the “Rainmaker First” philosophy.

Brian Gardner, Rafal Tomal, and Lauren Mancke are always hard at work designing and developing new themes and landing page templates, but now our (and their) focus has shifted to supplying our Rainmaker Platform customers with the best one-click web design in the world.

As of this week there are 29 design themes and 15 landing page templates (not including the custom landing page builder) available to Rainmaker customers, and there are many more on the way.

And no, this does not mean we are neglecting our beloved StudioPress customers. In fact, this philosophy will end up benefitting everyone in the end. As these Rainmaker designs are tested and used in real-world online business situations, they’ll only get better.

Social Media Posting and Scheduling

This is a big one, and a no-brainer. Very soon, Rainmaker customers will be able to — from within the Rainmaker dashboard — post and schedule updates, links, photos, and other content to their social networks.

Your Rainmaker site is the home base of your business, and the importance of using social networks to attract an audience and send them back to your home base is undeniable. We think social media posting and scheduling tools have become a necessity for the savvy online publisher, but they should be integrated into your website platform with your daily workflow.

Integrated RSS Reader

So, the ability to post and schedule social media updates from your Rainmaker dashboard will be cool, but how do you find intriguing content from other sources to share with your audience? And how do you manage the very real potential for information overload?

That tool used to be Google Reader (RIP), but now, for our customers, it will be the Rainmaker Reader. This coming integrated RSS reader will be the place you’ll be able to strategically track your industry feeds, find great content to share, and glean inspiration for producing your own content.

Curation-to-Content Tools

Want to easily manage and publish a curated topical newsletter? Want that link from your RSS reader dropped into an existing post? How about effortlessly sending it out to your social media accounts?

The Rainmaker Curator will — with the click of a button — allow you to easily port the great content you find via RSS directly into a new or existing article you’re writing for your own audience. This will become an invaluable tool in your broader editorial role as a content marketer.

Serious Learning Management System

The first product ever launched off of Copyblogger, Teaching Sells, shows people step-by-step how to create sophisticated online training courses, along with the business models that power them. And since 2007, people have begged us to give them the turn-key platform that allowed for content creation, membership management, marketing, and all the other technological tasks that go with running a legitimate online business.

We’ve built that platform with Rainmaker. But we’re creating course creation tools that constitute a true learning management system — one that will help you with the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, and delivery of e-learning courses and training programs.

What does that mean? Effortlessly create an online course without a developer, optimize your course content based on student behavior and feedback, run quizzes and surveys, and drip out your content (either paid or free) exactly as you want to, plus much more.

Marketing Automation/Adaptive Content

This is one of the most important technology applications that you’ll ever put in place for online marketing. And finally, it won’t cost you a ridiculous amount of money as with the current solutions.

Marketing automation (more appropriately known as adaptive content for those without sales teams) is not just about saving yourself from repeated tasks, or the drudgery of unscalable growth. Beyond those obvious benefits, its primary functions are:

To vastly improve the experience of your prospects and customers

To intelligently, and eventually effortlessly, grow revenue and profit

To make more of the traffic you already have without chasing more

Rainmaker’s automation and adaptive content features will allow you to tag, add, delete, and manage customers or prospects from your various email lists, build specific interest lists based on real-world actions on your site, nurture leads in a way that’s sensitive to their inbox, allow you to create different content experiences for different people, and much more.

You can use MailChimp, Infusionsoft, AWeber, or the other popular email services we’re in the process of adding. Or you can choose the integrated add-on Rainmaker email service we’re working on right now. Either way, Rainmaker Professional will go to work for you in previously unimagined ways.

Pay once instead of forever

Now, let me make this clear — there will be a charge for existing Standard customers to upgrade to Professional. It’s just that it won’t be an increase in the quarterly or annual recurring fee. It’ll be a one-time charge that locks you in to the Professional plan for the life of your account at the Standard pricing.

In short, you get to upgrade to the more powerful version of the platform that you’ll need as your site and business grow, but you’ll save a huge amount over time compared to those who sign up once the Professional plan is released to the general public. This is an option that will only be available to existing Rainmaker customers who get on board before the Professional Plan is released.